Auditor General Loses Appeal Over Spouse's Stock Sale Decision Dispute

Yoo Byung-ho, Secretary General of the Board of Audit and Inspection, lost a lawsuit he filed in opposition to the government's decision to sell shares of a bio company owned by his spouse.

Yoo Byung-ho, Secretary General of the Board of Audit and Inspection / Photo by Dong-joo Yoon doso7@

The Administrative 8th Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Lee Jeong-hee) ruled on the 12th that Yoo's lawsuit against the Stock Blind Trust Review Committee, requesting the cancellation of the decision recognizing job-relatedness, was dismissed.

The court stated, "The issuing companies of the stocks held by Secretary General Yoo's spouse are subject to selective audits by the Board of Audit and Inspection, and considering the scope of the Secretary General's duties, it cannot be said that there is no possibility of conflict of interest or unconstitutionality," and judged that "there is job-relatedness under the Public Officials Ethics Act." It added, "When private and public interests conflict, it is necessary to guide through national institutional operation rather than leaving the judgment to individual conscience," and noted that the Stock Blind Trust Review Committee's action was not an abuse of discretion.

Earlier, in September last year, Secretary General Yoo declared the stocks held by himself, his spouse, and children during the high-ranking public officials' asset declaration and requested a job-relatedness review from the Stock Blind Trust Review Committee. Yoo's spouse declared stocks worth 1.9 billion KRW. Among these, shares in unlisted bio companies such as GC Genome (Nokshipja Genome) amounted to 820 million KRW. The Stock Blind Trust Review Committee decided that these bio stocks posed a conflict of interest and ordered their sale, leading Yoo to file the lawsuit.

It is known that Secretary General Yoo will not appeal this court ruling.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.